GOTHAM – My rating: 8.5/10

The acting is a little funky but Gotham turned out to be a very good series.  The story starts with the killing of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Wayne.  Master Bruce Wayne is still a young child played by David Mazouz (known for the series Touch) who is way ahead of his years.  His role is minimal right now but we all know that he becomes Batman with his trusted butler Alfred Pennyworth played by Sean Pertwee who is raising him, at his side.  Gotham is a complete mess.  Crime and bribery everywhere, cheating, stealing, murder, you name it, Gotham has it.  The police aren’t very effective because most of the cops are on the take along with most government officials.  A new recruit and rookie detective named James Gordon played by Ben McKenzie seems to be one of the few straight cops left.  He has vowed to find the Wayne’s murderer. Police Captain Sarah Essen, played by Zabryna Guevara seems to be on the straight and narrow but I’m not sure at this point.   Jada Pinket-Smith stars as a corrupt night club owner named Fish Mooney, who favors women over men.  There are 2 major crime families fighting for territory and James’ partner Harvey Bullock played by Donal Logue is far from 100% legit.  The show is very good and action packed.  There’s one other character named Oswald Cobblepot, played by Robin Lord Taylor, who I’m sure is going to corrupt things even more in the future and probably the most dangerous of all.  He’a work in progress.  The acting is a little premature — it will most likely get better with age.  Future villains include The penguin, the Riddler, Cat Woman, The Joker, Poison Ivy, Scare Crow, Hugo Strange, Havey Dent, Mr. Freeze and Victor Zsasz.  Gotham airs on FOX and is a very good series, worth seeing.

THE STRAIN (2014) – My rating 8.5/10

The Strain is only 1 season down but is a pretty good one.  It’s a little different as a horror/sci-fi series because it has a little of many horror characters rolled into one or two characters.  I couldn’t decide if the main monster was a vampire, zombie or the devil himself.  It all starts when a Boeing 767, on its way across the tarmac, stops at JFK then goes totally silent.  The engines are shut down, the belly of the plane is cold and there are no communications from anyone inside the plane, including the pilot and co-pilot.  Every organization known to the USA was brought in to investigate, including Corey Stoll who plays Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, the head of the Center for Disease Control ( CDC) Canary Team in New York City. After entering the plane, the team is able to determine, via ultra violet light, that some sort of bacteria was all over the plane and all but 4 passengers were dead.  The plot thickens from here and the mystery begins to unfold.  There is plenty of territorial fighting among the different agencies jockeying for position.  There is also a warning from an unlikely source that gets ignored but later picked up as the plot developes.  I’m trying not to give away too much of the story away because it is pretty good and the element of surprise puts the suspense where it belongs.  The Strain airs of the FX channel and I think it is different enough to hold your attention.  Check it out!

UNDER THE DOME – My rating: 8/10

Under The Dome is about a small town, Chester Mills, that’s suddenly enclosed under a 10 plus miles clear, dome that’s high enough to allow rain.  No one knows where it came from or if it’s ever going to go away.  There is no way in or out.  The town is literally trapped.  There is no way to get any medical supplies to the people or food.  The military tried to blow the dome up with the mother of all bombs but failed.  In the meanwhile, there are many stories going on all over town.  For example, a councilman’s son kidnapped a former girlfriend and locked her in his bomb shelter.  2 kids have seizures whenever they touch the palms of their hands to each other.  Several police were killed,  each in a bazaar way, the councilman killed the town reverend who was involved in illegal drug dealings and several strangers with unrighteous agendas are trapped there as well .  If you think this sounds crazy, you’re right and there’s much, much more.  Season 2 of Under the Dome starts airing June 30, 2014 .  I watched season 1 (13 episodes) on Amazon Prime.  I was hooked in no time.  This is a Steven King story produced and directed by Stephen Spielberg.  It’s quite good.  The opening of season 2 should be very interesting!

Season 2:
Very disappointing opening. The drama was played down and unrealistically, the stars stay the stars, functioning as though nothing happened. I am very disappointed at where and how the story is headed. Because they’re trapped under a dome, there shouldn’t be any new characters, but there are.  Go figure.  The writing is getting sloppy and not making a lot of sense. I’m afraid if things don’t change, this series may get cancelled.

ROSEMARY’S BABY 1968 9/10 vs 2014 8.5/10

1968

I saw the original Rosemary’s baby when it came out in 1968 and again in May of 2014, a couple of days after the new Rosemary’s Baby mini series ended.  The original starring Mia Farrow, was in the movies but the remake, starring Zoe Saldana as Rosemary Woodhouse, was on TV (NBC) as a 2 part mini series.  I am happy to see a modernize version of this classic tale of evil remade.  However, because it was remade for TV, Rosemary’s Baby was swarming with commercials.  The original was dark, mysterious and scary.  The remake definitely  lacked some of the mystery although most of the elements were there.  The scary and mysterious aura were not.  In all fairness, this could also be because I already knew what to expect.  I found a few small problems with the remake.  I think it should have been produced for and aired on a premium channel like HBO, Showtime or Starz.  The

2014

commercials were a huge turnoff.  Another really tiny thing that annoyed me was  Zoi’s long straight hair wig.  It looked artificial.  Over all, Rosemary’s Baby was excellently done the first time (a 9/10).   I would give the remake a 8.5/10 because of the obvious updates and how they fit it all in the story without compromising the plot.  In the original, Rosemary didn’t have the luxury of a cell phone or internet so she relied on using pay phones as well as books from the library.    I liked the way Rosemary and her husband interacted with one another.  They definitely seemed closer in the remake.  Now that the mini series has aired, I suspect you can catch it ON DEMAND then after a while on Netflix.  I think Roman Polanski did a very good job on the original and  Agnieszka Holland did equally as well on the remake.  The story was slightly changed to accommodate modern times without compromising the film.  I loved Patrick J. Adams (Suites) as Guy Woodhouse.   BTW:  I really am not into Devil movies but this one was an eye opener in it’s hay day.  You can learn a thing or two and keep your eyes open, you never know what so folks are up to.  Overall, check this one out especially if you’ve never seen the original.  I don’t think it will scare you as much as intrigue you.

ONCE UPON A TIME – My rating: 8.5/10

You can do anything with a little imagination.  Already well established fairy tales and other children’s stories are embellished to make this, not so childish series, appealing to old and young alike.  Since the beginning of Once Upon a Time, Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Rumpelstiltskin, Pinocchio, Jimmy the Cricket, Jack and the Bean Stalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Robin Hood and his Merry Band of Men, The wizard of Oz, Hansel and Gretel and many more were all explored before taking on a life of its own.  Recurring characters like Snow White/Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin) , Red Riding Hood/Ruby (Meghan Ory ), Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle), Captain Hook/Hook (Colin O’Donoghue ), Prince Charming/David Nolan (Josh Dallas), Emma Swan/the savior (Jennifer Morrison), Henry (Jared Gilmore), The Evil Queen/Regina (Lana Parillia) and others are interwoven into a complex story of good vs evil in an unknown and unseen town called Storybrook.  This series is in it’s 3rd season and still going strong.  There are 3 worlds in this story: the present (New York), The past (the enchanted forest) and Storybrook, a place where there was no magic.  All that has changed as well as the story and the characters.

Once Upon A Time is quite interesting and has continued to wow it’s audience.  Emma and Neil had a son he didn’t know about when she was very young.  Having no sound means to raise a child, she gave him up for adoption.  Enters Regina who adopts and raises the child, known as Henry.  Henry discovers a book of fairy tales given to him by his teacher, Mary Margaret who is really Snow White as well as Henry’s grandmother.  Henry suspects they are all characters from his book, with no memory of their true past, so he sets out to find “the savior” who is also his biological mom, Emma who lives in New York.

Confused? Catch this exciting series in full on Netflix.  Once Upon A Time airs on ABC.

SLEEPY HOLLOW – My Rating: 8.5/10

I didn’t except this new series called Sleepy Hollow to be about how the legend came to be or what it takes in these modern times to deal with such things as headless horsemen, demons, the Masons, Ichabod Crane and two beautiful young African American sisters who are all so pulled into the legend they don’t live for anything else.  Originally, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was derived from a  short story by American author Washington Irving.  It consisted of 34 essays and short stories entitled “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent” and was first published in the year 1820.

Each week the essays are torn down from book form into episodes depicting this famous novel’s stories that make up this popular folktale.  The twist and turns are pretty interesting and Ichabod Crane, played by Tom Mison, who was resurrected after 250 years, has joined forces with Lt. Abbie Mills played by Nicole Beharie to continue the good fight between good and evil.  This is a complicated series since it’s mainly based on some scripture and fictional documentation which is presented on a weekly basis.  The original story is set in 1790 in the countryside around the Dutch settlement of Tarrytown, New York, in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow, which is renowned for its ghosts and the haunting atmosphere that pervades the imaginations of its inhabitants and visitors. The most infamous spectre in the Hollow is the Headless Horseman, said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper who had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during “some nameless battle” of the American Revolutionary War, and who “rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head”.

Since Sleep Hollow is fiction, this modern time version has been embellished and “Hollywooded” to the max.  I tried not to like it at first but soon became addicted.  Season 2 is due to begin in the fall of 2014, and I for one, cannot wait.  Sleepy Hollow currently airs on FOX TV.

GRIMM – My rating: 8.5/10

Every week the Grimm (Nick Burkhardt), played by David Giuntoli  and his partner (Hank Griffin) played by Russell Hornsby,  go out on police cases involving Wesen and other strange looking demon like creatures.  Because these perfectly normal looking people can change back and forth from human to creature, no one knows that they are not completely human.  They can be seen in their unhuman form if they choose to be seen that way.  If they don’t, only the Grimm can see what they really look like.  The Grimm is not one of the creatures.  Legend says the Grimm only hunts and kills these creatures.  This series is quite complicated as the Grimm has many of these creatures as friends, including a very close Wieder Blutbad named Monroe, played by Silas Weir Mitchell and his fiance, a  Fachsbau named Rosalee Calvert, played by Bree Turner and his boss,  a Fluent Francophone named police captain Sean Renard, played by Sasha Roiz.  There are many twist and turns in this series.  These creatures are not all bad.  Some are quite good.  The stories are interesting, the acting is great and the concepts will keep you tuning in week after week.  As it turns out, this Grimm does not follow legend, he does not hunt and kill unless a gruesome crime has been committed by one of them and causes him to hunt and/or the reaction to a violent act causes him to kill.  No one knows about these creatures or the Grimm except a few choice folks.  This series is well written and keeps the production light hearted enough that no one is completely grossed out by these demonic looking creatures.  It’s a very good show.  Check it out.  The Grimm currently airs on NBC and is not suited for children under 15.

TRUE BLOOD – My rating: 8/10

Every time I sit down to watch this HBO series, I brace myself for the introduction theme which I think is totally evil.  I tell myself once I get past the start up, things will get better.  I really enjoy True Blood even though I don’t like the lead in.  I think I like the series because of some of the hot characters and because it’s written so you’ll have some compassion for their situation due to no fault of their own.

Vampires, werewolves, fairies, change shifters, Satan, corruption, evil, good, bad, sex, nudity, murderers, you name it, True Blood has it.  They seem to introduce new species every season.  If it were not make believe, I would be very upset over the foul characters and their stories every week.  What a crazy show of freaks.  Still, despite the dark side, it’s quite entertaining.  I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone under 21 or anyone who is trying to live a clean lifestyle.  The consistent bloody mouths of this freak show’s characters are bound to upset the faint of heart and delight the strong willed.  I won’t say I recommend this show but I will say, if you can get past all that corruption, go for it.